Germany: Eight year jail for banker in F1 corruption

29 June 2012. Gerhard Gribkowsky, the banker from Bayern LB who was once chairman of the F1 holding board, has been convicted of corruption and sentenced to eight and a half years in jail.

Former chief risk officer at BayernLB was convicted of tax evasion, bribery and breach of fiduciary trust in a court in Munich. He was charged with accepting $44 million in bribes, involving the sale of F1 by BayernLB to CVC in 2005 and specifically to a payment made by Ecclestone.

Ecclestone has not been charged by the German prosecutors and has denied any wrongdoing. He has always maintained that the payment was not bribery but instead was to stop Gribkowsky from following through on a threat to make allegations to UK tax inspectors about Ecclestone’s tax affairs relating to the family trust.